A $1 billion global platform to fight climate change and energy poverty

The IKEA Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation announced that they set up a $1 billion global platform to fight climate change and energy poverty in a platform that launched this year.

The aim of this project to reduce 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions and to empower 1 billion people with distributed renewable energy (DRE) said the organizations in a press release on Monday.

This platform will oversee the organizations’ combined matching funds. The platform will deliver clean and reliable power to the 800 million people worldwide who lack electricity, and a further 2.8 billion who have unreliable access.

It will be a public charity to manage a concerted effort to rapidly channel development funds to life-changing projects on the ground.

“If global energy consumption doesn’t change from fossil fuels to renewable energy, we will not meet the Paris Agreement ambitions and millions of families will be left behind in poverty. We need to be honest and recognize that the current approach is not delivering the impact the world needs in the time that we have,” said Per Heggenes, CEO IKEA Foundation said in the statement.

“Our collective ambition is to create a platform that supports renewable energy programmes which can deliver greenhouse gas reductions fast and efficiently and accelerate the energy transition. We need to replace polluting sources of energy with renewable ones, provide access to energy to communities and unlock further funding for sustainable models. Ultimately, we aim to unite countries and communities in urgent action to tackle the climate crisis, reduce 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions and, by doing so, we hope to positively impact the lives of 1 billion people,” Per added.

Despite the increase in funding towards energy transition; many developing countries have been struggling as they depend on polluting energy sources. Whilst global organizations struggling to allocate resources where needed. Hence, the organizations said that their platform will help governments to better achieve renewable electrification and development targets.

“Millions of lives and trillions of dollars have been lost to Covid 19, forcing people back into poverty after decades of progress. The effects of the climate crisis will make this even worse, which is why we must invest now to reverse this downward spiral,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation said in the statement.